In Too Deep
by IzzieXDiyanah
Summary: As he closed his eyes, Jace thought back to all the books he's read and he felt now what he was certain didn't exist when he'd read those books. His heart was breaking, but that was alright. - Jace/Clary, post CoFA, one shot. R&R!


**A/N: This is a companion piece to the other one shot I've written in Clary's POV, Dear Jace. It doesn't really matter if you've read that one, though, because both one shots are able to stand on their own. (= This one was inspired by Christina Perri's Arms. The lyrics just fit Jace and Clary perfectly, I think. Well…R&R!**

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><p>He squeezed his eyes shut as if wanting to close himself off from the world, engulfing himself in darkness even as he felt his heart rate picking up pace from deep inside him. A thudding in his ears coincided with the beating of his heart. He felt it—his heart, that is—kicking against the confinements of his chest, screaming for release. Or was it his lungs that were screaming for release?<p>

He didn't know exactly what he was doing. All he knew was that he wanted to get away from the sounds that haunted him, from the heartbreak in her eyes that seemed to follow him everywhere he went. He couldn't escape her. Not when he was alive and breathing and trying to get through his life as normally as possible. Which was why he'd run away here, why he was ignoring his body's pleas to be relieved of this torture. His lungs were screaming for air, but he couldn't care less.

This was what he deserved.

He felt his legs beginning to kick from underneath him, struggling against his body's urge to swim up to the surface and gasp for air. His arms were like sticks stuck to his side, rigid as ever, his fists clenched while he tried to fight the pain that was eating him alive.

Jace had never felt anything like this before. After years of suffering through Shadowhunter training at the Institute, after all those countless times his body had been sent to hell and back by demons, one would think that he would be accustomed to the pain. But even his pain threshold wasn't that high. Right now, it felt like there were thousands of thorns inside of him and they were being ripped out all at once by unseen forces over and over again.

If this was what it felt like to die, he didn't like it one bit. Although, it didn't matter whether or not he was enjoying it, did it? Because after everything he'd done to her, death was too good for him.

"_We have to end this. You're not good enough for me."_

Ah, how his heart had broke when he'd said those words to her. He'd felt like his soul had left him and gone to her, where it thought it belonged. But it didn't belong there. It never belonged there. All he'd ever done was hurt her and even though she didn't know it, even though she thought him as evil incarnate, that he didn't have a heart, what he was doing was for her own good. He couldn't be with her and not hurt her. That was fact. Jocelyn knew it and he knew it, and even so, he'd kept on trying to make them work because surely it was worth fighting for if his heart was screaming for her.

Despite being closed, all his eyes would see was her face. His mind was conjuring up that one girl, that one smile—and he couldn't take it. Every time he saw her face, it felt like something was clawing at his insides. He couldn't stand seeing the hurt that was evident in her eyes, in the way she looked at him. He couldn't stand seeing _her_, knowing that there was no other balm to his wound than that of her love. But he couldn't have her.

He'd just end up hurting her far worse anyway.

It was better to drive her away, he knew. Knowing that, however, did little to help ease the pain. "This is for her own good," he'd said. "She's better off without me," he had tried to convince himself. It had become his personal mantra over the past few weeks. Every time he said it, though, a question would rise up in his thoughts. What about what was good for him? She brought a smile to his face every single day. She kept him from losing hope. She was what was best for him.

His legs started kicking wildly beneath him, propelling him from the dark waters of the lake and up to the surface. When his head broke through the water, his mouth instantly opened and he began gasping for air, gulping great chunks of it and swallowing as if it were food. Pain flooded through his body, coursing through his veins in vicious strokes. He felt like screaming. For the pain, for the anguish.

For her.

Like a mother soothing her child, the water hit Jace gently in the back, as if coaxing him to get himself to shore. His heart was still thumping against his chest, but he could feel it slowing down, and so he began to wade his way through the water. Within minutes, his feet landed upon something that was partially solid. He could feel mud slipping through his toes as he climbed up to shore. He felt fatigued. He felt like he could just fall down and never get up.

And just like that, his knees gave out from underneath him, sending him tumbling down. Water sloshed about him, splashing into his face as his person fell heavily back into the lake. He should be grateful for small favours, though, he supposed. He was already upon solid ground and that gave the opportunity for his knees and hands to brace his fall, to keep him from being submerged completely in the water. Had he been further out in the lake where he'd previously been, he would've sunk to the bottom, never to be heard from again.

His fingers dug deep into the mud for some sort of anchor. Although his knees were trying their best to keep him out of the water, they felt like jelly. So his hands moved up slowly, dragging him out of the water and onto the lake's edge. His whole body felt heavy, like there was no longer anything in them, no longer anything in _himself_ to feed him energy.

Perhaps this was what attempted suicide did to a person.

When he came into contact with land, his nails, again, dug into the soil. Or at least tried to. The ground was hard, the soil refusing to let him be such a self-pitying wimp. His fingers wrapped themselves around grass and he pulled himself out of the water, his body finally regaining some form of strength to enable him to crawl out of the lake. And then he simply slumped onto the ground like a fallen tree.

He missed her, he realized. It was easier not to think about how much he wanted her with him while he was allowing himself to drown in the water. Now that his mind was cleared, though, fresh pangs of hurt crashed into him with such force, he could've been thrown backwards. He missed her beyond anything that was logical.

Had she seen him now, had she not hated him, she would be taking his hand and helping him get up. Then she'd start screaming at him for being so stupid. He would take one look at her and all these feelings of self-loathing and depression would leave him in an instant, in their place a will so strong that he himself would be amazed by it. And it would all be borne from her, from his yearning to be happy with her. But that was what Clary had always been. She was his lifeline.

Giving her his heart to hold in her hands was something he'd never seen coming. He hadn't anticipated falling in love with anyone quite so deeply, so profoundly, but that was exactly what had happened with Clary. He took one look at her and he knew that she was the one he wanted to get close. He wanted to love her with everything he had, with everything he could give because she deserved no less from him. It dawned upon him that this was the girl he was meant to spend the rest of his life showering in love, the one whose soul fit perfectly with his.

But to love is to destroy and to be loved is, in turn, to be destroyed. He remembered that one line so perfectly, Valentine's voice echoing in his memory. It couldn't leave him alone and every time he looked at Clary, he saw those words and he saw how much he didn't want to break her. He knew what he'd be doing if he pursued happily-ever-after with her, but, by the Angel, he was selfish. So he stayed with her. He kept her close, persuaded her to open her heart to him while he kept his own in the dark, never letting her see the truth.

Jace looked up at the night sky. It was devoid of any stars, just like his soul was devoid of the one made for it.

A harsh laugh escaped his lips then and he continued to laugh—and laugh and laugh and laugh. You're going crazy, he thought to himself. "Yes, I am going crazy. That's me. Crazy Jace," he said, tears beginning to well up in his eyes although his laughter never ceased.

He'd hoped that she would see straight through his walls. He'd hoped that as he fell, she would be at the bottom, waiting to catch him because heaven knows he's been falling for quite some time now. But he'd pushed her away, made her hate him, and she left her spot at the bottom, leaving him to crash, to feel the pain of her not being around for him.

He reached towards his belt, feeling for the seraph blade that he always kept strapped to it. Drowning hadn't worked, but the seraph blade wouldn't fail him. He knew it wouldn't fail him. "Saraqael," he whispered, his hand feeling around his waist for the burning sensation that the blade would produce.

And he felt nothing.

His head snapped down to look at where his hand was, his eyes adapting to the dark. His seraph blade wasn't there.

It seemed like everything was working against him tonight, like Fate was saying, "I'm not going to let you go so easily, Jace Herondale." No, it was going to keep him here to live every single day of his life in agony over the love he'd lost. Clary would move on some day. She'd meet a man who was worthy of her good spirit, who was worthy of everything she could give him, and Jace Herondale or Wayland or whoever she chose to remember him by would be a distant memory ten years from now. When her husband asked her of her past loves, she'd struggle to remember his face and his name. Or maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she would remember him as who he really was—the exact replica of Valentine Morgenstern.

The tears began to trickle down the corner of his eyes. He could feel them carving his sadness into his face, yet he made no move to wipe them away as he said, "You have no right to weep for yourself, Jonathan Christopher." Whereas before, when he saw Clary or heard her telling him that she loved him, his heart would swell and expand, tonight he didn't have any of that and at his own words, it contracted instead. "You've no one to blame but yourself for your misery. You're the idiot who wanted to fall in love."

As he closed his eyes, Jace thought back to all the books he's read and he felt now what he was certain didn't exist when he'd read those books. His heart was breaking—but that was alright. He'd given all of himself to Clary and the pain that he felt now in his chest was the only thing he had left to keep to remind him that he had loved someone and had been loved in return. It was the only thing he had that could differentiate him from the man who'd raised him.

The bliss he'd felt with Clary had been genuine and the love he'd given her was pure. And he knew that as long as she was happy, that love would be well taken care of.


End file.
